Self-Portrait in Bowler Hat (Selbstbildnis mit steifem Hut)

1921

The German Expressionist Max Beckmann created more than eighty self-portraits during his career—many of them prints, which afforded him a range of marks, lines, and textures with which to articulate his own shifting attitudes and emotional states. In this densely worked, spiky image, he appears as a gentleman wearing a bowler hat, stiff collar, and tie, holding a cigarette rakishly. A cat—placed so it seems to be whispering in his ear—and an oil lamp flank him. His form is pushed to the front of the picture plane, with his large eyes conveying a sense of detached appraisal.

Beckmann immigrated to the United States in 1947 and taught for several years at the Brooklyn Museum Art School (which closed in 1985).